Category Archives: Bicycling

So this morning’s Sierra Post Daily Deal is shorts with a U-Lock Holster. I have to assume it’s to hold my bike lock… and that hey, people are just expected to know that ;)

It’s now become regular to see … not just ‘way more than the “it’s a big biking day — I saw 10 bikes on the commute in!” that would have been true a year or two ago … but to see riders goin’ the same direction in close proximity who …. aren’t riding together.

Need to figure out that dashboard thing this weekend… I acquired a LImefuel rugged to snag power from my dynamo. I was baffled by the cable — turns out it’s just a totally different-looking USB port. I ‘splained at the site that I am of a generation of folks who do *not* just stick things into holes in electronic things… or at least I don’t after the smoke comes out and I’ve fried the device…

Would love to actually count our riders and their bikes and demographics. I strongly suspect we have more womenfolks on bikes with baskets per capita than is the norm ;)

So I cross Bradley to get on the sidewalk for my unabashed “nonvehicular” exercise and oh, my!!! another user of the sidewalk! Coming towards me from a hundred yards away is a guy on a chopper bike, fully focused on… the apartments to my right, pedaling madly… No, he’s not scanning… so I toot my air horn. He grins madly, says “thank you!” I say “Good morning!” and he replies in kind riding by, and I realize that if my “full body smile” is anything like that, no wonder people crack up laughing ;)

Last night I rode home on the folder — the Gazelle has yet another flat tire, so I’m thinking the tire itself has been compromised. I’m inclined to switch off to unstudded, tho’ it’s snowing today.

At LIncoln Ave — as in, busy four lane Lincoln — I was crossing from Main… and not one but *two* vehicles (in succession) really wanted to stop and let me across. I held my ground… and then considered that just perhaps the bike’s redness, my high-vis jacket and the blue front and red rear spoke lights (oh, and it being the Night Before Unofficial St. Pat’s Day) had peeps thinking I was something authoritative.

It happened again this morning, though, sans spoke lights. I didn’t hold my ground — so it was a confusing interaction… and pity for a biker inthe snow might have contributed (as well as it being Unofficial).

And it happened again in a different form at Bradley and Country Fair. The line to the light at Country Fair was backed up 15-20 deep, so I hopped the snowy sidewalk (my front tyre on the Dahon is studded) and went up with the intention of hitting the walk button if things weren’t workin’ right. They were… but Bradley was also extremely backed up. I wondered if perchance there was a wreck on the highway (tho’ Bradley isn’t where they’d land)… and heard the fire engines as my light turned green. I crossed (it was a half mile away) and watched as it went into the oncoming traffic lane to get around the zillion cars waiting for the light, which inspired me to signal the left-turners (who couldn’t see the truck through all the cars and aroundthe corner) to stop.

I might have taken the bus but sorry, CUMTD, there is one day I don’t want to use transit and that’s Unofficial.

Other utter and confounding frustration: I have not gotten a reply to an email inquiry about Gazelle parts I am was SURE I sent. I meticulously discerned the parts and their names and numbers. I made sure to make a spare copy in case that one got lost.

I can find absolutely no evidence of ever having performed this task. After all, I know one of the parts; you’d think I could find the document with that character string in it.

I rode in this morning “as if I were invisible.” It’s a whole lot less fun and I don’t think it’s really safer, *usually.* No, I didn’t turn into a gutter bunny, but I was going a whole lot more gingerly, especially at intersections of any kind. I think this is what it felt like the first times out on the road…

Scene on the ride in — this is frost, not snow. I had already decided to hop to the sidewalk on Bradley since visibility was AWFUL (this rider had pulled up beside me at LIncoln in the arrogant assumption that s/he’d be going faster than me… and it was a lovely WIndsor bike, and it did… and then had to brake pretty hard and swerve to avoid the nimrod blowing the stop sign at the next intersection.

Construction meant the right lane was blocked at Bradley so I ducked onto the path and then couldn’t resist snagging a picture. This was after the frost had stpped actively *falling* from the skies (during which the visibility was better) and sticking to everything, and was just hovering in its white suspension.

Wide roads between businesses … cold and rainy…– Market Street is the the best but still bad way out to North of the Interstate … life… ended.

And… update. Seems commenter thought this was unsympathetic and sanctimonious, and I remembered that … when I want to find out if something horrible happened to somebody, somewhere, extremely recently, I Google news and blogs with the name. So, it’s not the blog to talk about me. Defending my post as “well, still reacting” — well, I posted it… and any comments should be given the same appreciation for “reacting.”

Time to ride to work. (Sanctimonious three-sentence rant about the evils of motor vehicles removed.)

No, not the organized-but-deny-it rides… but the fact that I’ve commuted 5 and a half days and cycle sightings are …. they’re not really sightings any more, except for this morning when there were “only” 11 or 12. (Does the U have MTWF classes, too?)

At least three times there have been multiple bikes at an intersection (twice, five). Goin’ under the RR tracks one day, there were two of us going east, two going west and no cars.

It’s not all good, though… there’s a Mr. Vest who looks like Mr. Safe Rider, is significantly older than Your Average Undergrad… and if he rode like that and were the only rider, then he’d only be annoying drivers when they saw him bobbing and weaving. He’s quite competent, but we played leapfrog last Thursday and Friday because I’m faster than he is, but I don’t ignore stop signs and weave between the cross traffic. This week I’ve managed to get myself out the door a few minutes earlier… unless he’s already clocked somebody…

Went to Meijer last night to get a mouse, and as I was leaving a lady rode up on a Roadmaster and complimented the Xtracycle, and went on to say in her accented voice that this was a nice place for cycling, and that the drivers were so nice and drove slowly, and she was only now getting used to it, since she was from Europe. I concurred ;)